HGI standard for QoS on home gateway

HGI, the global organisation for publishing requirements for the digital home, has published an updated specification for improving Quality of Service (QoS) through the Home Gateway.

HGI _RD027-R3, “Home Gateway QoS Module Requirements” addresses the current evolution of the home network to an IPv6 environment, and identifies the Home Gateway requirements needed to extend the HGI service-class oriented QoS approach to include IPv6.

Duncan Bees, Chief Technology Officer for HGI, said: “HGI has identified how service providers can classify data traffic passing through the home gateway and provide appropriate treatment to each service class. Our previous publications on QoS have had a significant impact in influencing the home networking strategies taken by service providers worldwide. The new specification will likely have a similar impact as IPv6 networks are rolled out. ”

The document is applicable to IPv4 and IPv6 networks on both the WAN and LAN sides of the Home Gateway. The strategy of using the Home Gateway as a key QoS enforcement point allows the service provider to designate service classes and their treatment based on a rich set of classification criteria, including the IPv4 and IPv6 headers. It takes a real-world approach that considers the actual QoS problems in various broadband scenarios, considering not just value-added services but also OTT services, and other traffic types.

David Thorne, Chief Broadband and Access Strategist, BT Innovate and Design, and HGI board member, added: “The document has been created thanks to the help of service providers through their HGI membership. It will enable them to maintain the quality of their current value-added services, like voice and video, while also supporting new Smart Home applications such as healthcare. The new specification will become part of the 2013 HGI test programme.”